Neither of those are outside the realm of something we might have expected to eventually happen. After all, some Lebanese have taken up arms against Syria in the past, so demonstrations aren’t without precedent. Egypt of course has an ‘authoritarian’ government, but has also been a moderate voice in Arab politics and has for some time had the trappings of democracy despite falling short on substance. But there were other surprises.

Abu Mazen responded to the latest terrorist attacks on Tel Aviv by saying, rightly, that they are “against Palestinian interests” and won’t be tolerated. Not surprising since even Arafat could say the right words about terrorism as long as he was speaking English. But there’s substance here. The Palestinian Authority received intelligence from the Israelis and used it to arrest 3 suspects.